


the darkest hour of the darkest night

by flightofwonder



Series: i love the way you see the world [3]
Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: (talked about briefly at the very beginning), Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Blindness, Eye Trauma, Gen, Hurt Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani, M/M, Pre-Canon, Temporary loss of sight, booker is there but not mentioned
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-27
Updated: 2020-10-27
Packaged: 2021-03-09 00:14:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,388
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27235576
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flightofwonder/pseuds/flightofwonder
Summary: Joe had experienced many horrific things over the almost-thousand years he’d been alive. But feeling his eyes melt from his sockets was definitely up there for a “worst experience” contender.
Relationships: Andy | Andromache of Scythia & Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani, Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova
Series: i love the way you see the world [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1864540
Comments: 28
Kudos: 200





	the darkest hour of the darkest night

**Author's Note:**

> John Mulaney voice: That's the same musical being used for a title twice!
> 
> Whumptober Prompt: Blindness. Yeah, this is a pretty basic prompt fill and not much more then that, but maybe someone will get something out of it. 
> 
> Set in my deaf!Joe AU, but you don't really need to know anything other than that fact to read this.

Joe had experienced many horrific things over the almost-thousand years he’d been alive. But feeling his eyes melt from his sockets was definitely up there for a “worst experience” contender.

It wasn’t so much the searing pain, or the disturbing sensation of having his eyes literally liquidated and running down his cheeks, though that was all plenty horrifying on their own merits. What made it horrifying was the loss. In a split second, he lost the best tool and weapon Joe had on hand. He had perfected his way through the world using sight, but without it, a terror set root in him, deeply and firmly.

His eyesight had been restricted in the past, but not eradicated. Even covered by cloth or hoods, Joe could gauge some kind of depth of field, even if it weren’t a particularly good one. Pockets of light still wormed their way through, and Joe could make out a vague sense of his surroundings from the texture of the levels of darkness around him.

But here, there was nothing for him to make a foundation with. Just infinite darkness. And with his deaf ears, he was cast unforgivingly into an unknowing void. 

All Joe had left going for him was touch, and currently, that wasn’t doing him any favors. Rough gloved hands heaved him upwards by his collar, and Joe elbowed towards the center of whoever was holding him, then kicked, hard.

The captor let go, but Joe was still in a sea of uncertainly, and he reached out his hands to try and catch a wall. A bullet tore through his hand, but the agony was tampered by relief when it touched something upright and solid, stilling the worst of the paranoia.

More bullets, ripping through muscle and tissue as he ran parallel to the wall, but he didn’t make it far before his knees finally buckled under him from the lead buried inside. He tried to push through it, to force his limbs to comply, but his heart was beating too fast now, and he was losing blood quicker than usual.

Foreign hands again – larger, and their nails dug into Joe’s neck as he pushed Joe against the wall. He tried his best to throw a punch, but it went through the air, and in retaliation, he got the end of a gun to his gut. He felt his chest gasping for air as fingers tugged at his hair, forcing him upright again.

More hands touched his biceps and his shoulders, and Joe felt fear crawl up his throat at how completely untethered he was to anything that might help him. He was properly marooned, and his captors must have figured this out, because punches started coming at random intervals, leaving enough time for Joe to flinch long before a blow reached him. Men like them, they were probably laughing it up, toying with a mouse caught in a trap.

He hoped that their egos provided a good enough distraction when he managed to grab and break the arm of someone who was holding him, twisting his body around roughly. He wished he could hear the bone crack, but at least he could feel the unnatural angle of the man’s arm and the desperation of new bullets ripping through him. But this time, Joe slid to the floor and kicked out. It made hard contact with something, someone, and the bullets paused long enough for Joe to reach out and drag the guard down flat to the ground. He aimed for what he thought was the center of their mass as Joe lunged down, but he was pretty sure he hit an outer rib instead. It cracked just the same, and he didn’t feel them try to get back up, so, good enough.

Joe realized he was still bracing for bullets, lying low to the floor, but as seconds passed, more didn’t come. This meant one of two things. Either there were significantly fewer guards than he thought there were, or –

Hands grabbed his neck yet again, and Joe was getting really sick of that invasive touch, and he headbutted his assailant to make his displeasure known.

But his forehead didn’t reach anything but air, and when he whipped his head back up, there was one hand at his neck and one on his chest. They were firm, but not restricting, and as Joe heaved a deep breath, he recognized the feeling of those fingertips tracing the nap of the curls on his neck.

 _Andy_ , he thought, relief flooding him and almost knocking him to his knees. He instantly felt anchored when she patted his chest, then moved her hand to his back, leading him forward. His bullet wounds had healed as quickly as usual, but he still couldn’t see anything. But that was fine, he told himself. If Andy was here, they would figure it out.

Lean arms forced him to duck as they ran, dodging something he couldn’t see, and Joe tried his best to keep what he thought was a straight line by Andy’s side. The terrain changed under his boots – rocky gravel instead of smooth tile floors – and it got harder to keep from tripping over himself, but with Andy’s steady grip, he managed.

They stopped abruptly, and he started as arms lifted him from the ground. He was elevated from where he was before, and he could feel a thin carpet under his hand, but before he could get a proper sense of his surroundings, arms wrapped around his chest and pulled him in close. At first, Joe froze, but these hands didn't land more blows. They held tight but didn’t constrain him, grounding him instead.

It was the smell he recognized first: underneath the dirt and lead and blood, the light aroma of the herbs he used with breakfast this morning still clung to his neck, and with that, Joe finally hugged him back.

The world shifted under them, and Joe recognized the jerky movements of a van in motion. Nicky held him steady, hands still clutching around his chest, and Joe knew exactly how those hands felt right there and on every other inch of his body. He was safe now, and he knew it.

But the darkness still had a hold on his eyes. He was breathing too quickly, and Nicky could tell, could always tell. So, he took Joe’s shaking hands and lay them flat on both of his own cheeks. Joe accepted the invitation and slowly, methodologically, began to trace his features, and a quickening inside him finally eased. He felt his thumb on the curve of his proud nose, his forefingers softly touching eyelids, then eyebrows, then the crease where his forehead met hair. His fingers flowed down like a river to trace the edge of his strong jaw, before finger pads touched soft lips.

He leaned forward to kiss them, not caring that it was a bumpy journey to reach them, and when they met, Joe’s chest finally finished settling: he would know those lips anywhere. They were his home, after all.

Joe tried not to start when Nicky touched his cheek after they pulled away, but Nicky kept his fingers from leaving Joe’s skin, instead moving them to trace the bags under his eye sockets. Joe realized then that they didn’t feel as staggeringly empty as they had when this all started. He felt as if he had proper eyes in his head again, but sight still eluded him.

Nicky guided his head downwards to rest against his chest, his vest evidently removed, and wrapped his arms around both sides of Joe’s head. When his sight returned to him, Nicky would be the first to shield him from the overwhelming sensations, as welcome as they would be. Nicky was always his shield: always the first to incapacitate moving targets for Joe to take on at closer range, but his shield in other ways, too. Joe hadn’t faltered on a mission in a long time, not just because he had faith in his own ability, but because he had faith in Nicky, too.

He wouldn’t lie and say that losing his sight hadn’t shaken him to his core, but he would be back in familiar territory soon enough. Until then, he rested in the familiar shape of Nicky’s arms.

**Author's Note:**

> tumblr: [flightsofwonder](https://flightsofwonder.tumblr.com/)


End file.
